The Pinnacle Weblog

There are two military concepts here that explain the (absolutely spectacular) choice of Governor Sarah Palin. One of them is the “envelope“: the parameters within which a fighter airplane must operate.  The envelope can be seen as a sort of egg-shape, based on how quickly a plane can turn and maneuver.  If your plane as a “tighter envelope” than another plane, the pilot has the advantage in a dogfight. More important is the “OODA loop” — which is the envelope for the pilot’s thought process.  How quickly can the pilot observe the situation, orient within the situation, decide, and act.  If the pilot’s OODA loop time is shorter, the pilot can overcome the slower.

According to Michael Barone, Townhall.com columnist, in

That term (OODA) is the invention of the great fighter pilot and military strategist John Boyd. It’s an acronym for Observe, Orient, Decide, Act.

“The key to victory is operating at a faster tempo than the enemy,” Boyd’s biographer Robert Coram writes. “The key thing to understand about Boyd’s version is not the mechanical cycle itself, but rather the need to execute the cycle in such a fashion as to get inside the mind and decision cycle of the adversary.”

For a political candidate, it means acting in such a way that the opponent’s responses again and again reinforce the points you are trying to make and undermine his own position.

Obama chief strategist David Axelrod admitted of the Palin pick: “I can honestly say we weren’t prepared for that. I mean, her name wasn’t on anybody’s list.” But it was known that McCain’s VP adviser had traveled to Alaska, and anyone clicking on youtube.com could see Palin’s impressive performance in political debates. The McCain campaign shrewdly kept the information that she was on the short list and that she was the choice to a half-dozen people, who didn’t tell even their spouses. The Obama team failed to Observe.

Then they failed to Orient. Palin… powerfully reinforces two McCain themes: She is a maverick … and she has a record on energy of favoring drilling and exploiting American resources. Instead of undermining these themes, they dismissed the choice as an attempt to appeal to female Hillary Clinton supporters or to religious conservatives.

Then team Obama and its many backers in the media failed to Decide correctly, so when they Acted they got it wrong. Their attacks on Palin tended to ricochet and hit Obama. Is she inexperienced? Well, what has Obama ever run (besides his now floundering campaign)? Being a small-town mayor, as Palin said, is like being a community organizer, “without the actual responsibilities.”

It sounds to me that the Obama campaign’s “strategery” is now one of reaction instead of action. Obama’s strategists were handed a lesson in political strategy and tactics that sprang from the military background of Sen. McCain. Note how Barone describes the discipline of the McCain team, not leaking or even hinting at Palin’s selection. This is exactly what we need in a Commander-in-Chief.

More Barone:

Robert Coram describes what can happen when one player gets inside another’s OODA loop. “If someone truly understands how to create menace and uncertainty and mistrust, then how to exploit and magnify the presence of these disconcerting elements, the loop can be vicious, a terribly destructive force, virtually unstoppable in causing panic and confusion and — Boyd’s phrase is best — ‘unraveling the competition.’ … The most amazing aspect of the OODA loop is that the losing side rarely understands what happened.”

John Boyd would have been a terrific political consultant.

Too bad for the Obama team that Col. Boyd is no longer with us.  I have my doubts that he would have made himself available to them.  They will have to do with Matt Damon and Susan Sarandon. I think the George W. quote applies to what the McCain camp must be thinking. “They misunderestimated me.” (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bushisms).

So to Sen. Obama, here’s a little instructional video,courtesy youtube :

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